Toward a Blue Mass

The best part about the results in Virginia*, New Jersey, and Washington State, is that these states will now not only have Democratic trifecta (unified Democratic control) but progressive Democratic trifecta. The NY Times already had a preview of the emerging “Blue Wall” on the West Coast that could bypass the Trump Administration on carbon pricing, living wages, and single payer health care.

Lamentably, they will also be bypassing Massachusetts, largely the “bluest state” in name only. BMG contributor Jonathan Cohn brought this gem to my attention on twitter.

Despite holding 73% of the House and 87% of the Senate, the Chair of our state party is asking its members to sign a ballot initiative for Paid Family Leave. A law that could easily be passed by our supermajority over any potential veto by our Republican governor. Having to go to the ballot for basic progressive legislation, despite this partisan advantage, is truly pathetic. VA and WA will only have one seat advantages* for their trifecta-yet I am confident both state legislatures will pass far more consequential legislation than ours in the term ahead.

Tuesday’s results should teach us that every race should be contested, that competitive primaries strengthen our party, and that millennial and minority voters will only be activated by promises of bold change and strong stances against the far right. Collaborating with Baker, accepting his re-election as inevitable, and forcing our local grassroots to waste precious man hours and money to pass basic progressive legislation is unacceptable.

The short term solution is to pass every single one of these ballot questions and beat Baker to bypass this inertia. The long term solution has to be for groups like Indivisible, Our Revolution, and maybe even the state party to start to get involved in local primaries and force the pols to adhere to the platform. Otherwise it’s a paper tiger majority.

Legislative primaries in MA are low risk/high reward opportunities. Recent races have already shown this in the defeat of DINO’s like Tim Toomey and the exile of a potential DINO like Joe Shortsleeve to a failed independent candidacy. The risk of losing the legislature to Republicans is nil. The risk of a bold campaign for Governor is nil.

Throughout my own journey on the 2016 campaign trail, I heard complacency that our state was doing fine. I still hear this in 2017. Yes we have Senator Warren leading a great DC delegation, but locally it’s not fine.

Massachusetts is the most economically unequal state in the country. The Financial Times-no socialist rag-just released a finding that our housing market is the most inflated in the country. Worse than New York or San Francisco. The lack of starter homes is even leading to a brain drain of talent from our state. Smart people graduate from our public schools and area colleges but leave for cheaper pastures like Austin, Philly, or Pittsburgh. That will have trickle down effects on our schools, our crime and drug abuse rates, and even our politics as the rise of the right in Worcester County, Bristol County and the Cape attest too. A proud bay stater once said that all politics is local. All progressive politics is local. The Revolution that started on Tuesday has to start here-within our own party.

*VA delegate races are still being counted, but it’s looks likely they have a 1 seat majority in the end.

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State party can’t play favorites in primaries, though once there is a nominee it can and should use adherence to the platform in its financial triage decisions. I think we will have a bold campaign for Governor.

I once asked a representative who is progressive, how it was possible that their positions were quite progressive but the towns in that district were not what I would consider progressive. The answer given was that voters cared about passionate, principled representatives who reached out the community in man ways, got to be a “good neighbor”.

We have so few progressives in the house and senate, it’s beyond frustrating for me and one of the reasons I recently stepped down as chair of my town committee and plan to do do less, not more with the party.

Our house and senate could do so much more, but they seem to take that “the money has to come from somewhere” attitude as they are afraid to attack the ownership class in this state. They are afraid to support the working class.

Two anecdotes come to mind. One was a couple of state conventions ago when Senator Wolf spoke at a breakout session regarding that convention’s supposed main focus “Income inequality” and told us point blank, if we want to do something about it, send legislators willing to do something. By the way, his breakout session was the one and only area of the convention that spoke to the issue.

The other was two years ago, at a town committee holiday party where I asked a table of about twelve Democrats if the citizens working at Dunkin, Walmart, Cumberland Farms, Zoots, etc deserved a sustaining wage (a living wage) and they all said “no, they need to go to college and improve their skill set”.

That’s not a political party I am interested in.

We are do damn timid, so anxious to be moderate, middle of the road, unoffensive on economic issues (but not social issues) that as a member of the working class, I have little connection with the party.

Not super relevant for your larger, point, but I think you’re wrong about Virginia. The Republicans have a one seat advantage in the State Senate and look like, if nothing changes in recounts, that they’ll have a one seat advantage in the State House as well.

“Despite holding 73% of the House and 87% of the Senate, the Chair of our state party is asking its members to sign a ballot initiative for Paid Family Leave. A law that could easily be passed by our supermajority over any potential veto by our Republican governor. Having to go to the ballot for basic progressive legislation, despite this partisan advantage, is truly pathetic.”

Until we fix that issue, we will not have a truly representative government. Our legislators have allowed too much power to be concentrated at the top, and until we have some who are willing to stand up and say that is wrong – and to work to change it – we will not get the kind of progressive change that a majority of voters in MA support.

Until we fix that issue, we will not have a truly representative government. Our legislators have allowed too much power to be concentrated at the top, and until we have some who are willing to stand up and say that is wrong – and to work to change it – we will not get the kind of progressive change that a majority of voters in MA support.

I don’t know if there is support for these statements. It’s entirely possible –probably even–
that the MA electorate while in support of ‘progressive change’ is tightly beholden to some individualist hero-worshiping notions of leadership and, thus, our present situation is the fully predictable outcome. In that respect the government might be, in fact, truly representative. Yeah, MA wants progressive change. They may also want a single person to enact and implement it by sheer power of will.. Contradiction? Yep. What’s worse it leaves the CommonWealth open to charisma that stands in front of progressive implementation… and which, by force of will, slows or stops progressive change.

Such attitude may derive from an admixture of Catholicism, a pernicious specie of celebrity worship and a certain strain of Brahmin/Monarchist nostalgia we’ve actually never fully culled from the herd. Certainly this explains the slight absurdity that was William Welds Gubernatorial tenure… the slightly more absurdist Mitt Romney and may even explain the million of our fellow citizens of the CommonWealth who voted for the bottomless absurdity that is Donald Trump… all of whom received, near as no never mind, nearly the exact same vote tally.

There is also the mistaken hope that, with a strong leader in charge, the sausage making should be tidy and narratively clean. And this, frankly explains our disappointment with Deval Patrick and Barack Obama. The alternative, as has been pointed out at BMG before, would look a lot like the Speakership of George Keverian, variously described as ‘chaotic’ and ‘rudderless’ but which I would describe as ‘entirely in keeping with righteuous republican processes’ and only really a problem in contrast.

I try hard to push back against the “great man theory of history” in my own lesson planning. I want to focus on the ordinary people or unsung players who’d be vindicated later on. Madison’s important-but they should know the principled stances less heralded delegates like Gouvernor Morris. That the Althea Garrisons lead us to Danica Roem. I find it ironic how often our own progressive cause settles on big name figures to deliver us from the clutches of the far right.

Every no name tea party rep is doing his or her part for the conservative movement and they understand how to be cogs in such a movement and put the whole before the part. We will see if Our Revolution is different from the other personality based movements that withered on the vine like OFA and Patrick’s campaign arm.

It also means recognizing that all three gubernatorial candidates are far bolder progressives than the last batch or even Deval. That though they may not be as charismatic or flashy they have the right ideals, experiences, and principles.

What I love about Mike Connolly is down to earth and normal he is. I’ve actually had a beer with him and know his humble background and sincere commitment to these values. Ordinary people like him or my friend Sumbul or my former UIP committeewoman Sam Squailia who just got topped the at large Vote in Fitchburg. Ordinary people being empowered to take the reins of power is what we should be about-not messiah figures.

The hidden bonus with paid family leave, vacation time on par with the rest of the developed nations of the world and a 40 hour (or less) work week is that labor becomes less plentiful and wages ought to rise.

JConway – you have heard me on this before. These electeds call themselves Democrats to get elected but are in many cases far to the right of Dwight David Eisenhower. As to Indigent Defense, and the struggling poor and those with mental illness, they simply ignore, abandon, and slash services. In my opinion there is less for the mentally ill than there was in 1990 in terms of services, and in patient treatment beds are still far lower as to inventory than before Romney. Shameful because, and in my opinion DeLeo and his ilk simply do not care about the vulnerable, if they even think about them at all.

I’ve sparred with Walsh on occasion and here and twitter during my UIP days, and over the Patrick tenure which I give a more more mixed grade too. That said, he was a kickass organizer and campaign chair. Part of the excitement about Deval, and I’ll admit a major part of my eventual disappointment, is that he understood the DINO problem and wanted to solve it with grassroots power plays. It’s worth reviving with our next Governor and beyond.